Jonathan to govs: Tackle poverty in your states

President Goodluck Jonathan has charged all state governors to utilise resources available at their disposal to tackle poverty in their respective states.

He gave the charge at the State House in Abuja yesterday when the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Bala Mohammed, led a delegation to pay him Easter homage.

The president said Nigerians ought not to expect only the Federal Government to develop the country.

He said it was also not ideal for the governors to expect the Federal Government to provide everything needed to address poverty in the states.

Jonathan cautioned the governors to stop trading blames and challenged them to focus on addressing poverty in their domains.

The president, who noted that the states are semiautonomous, said he does not control state or local governments’ resources.

According to him, since governors and council chairmen completely controlled resources in their areas, if all state and local governments could work in concert, most of the problems would be solved.

Jonathan noted that demographic statistics indicate that the nation has got a huge youth population on its hands.

“We have challenges. We have issue of unemployment. Not too long ago, there was this ugly development at the Immigration Service (failed recruitment exercise) because of the level of unemployment and partial employment. Some are doing jobs that don’t meet their qualifications, they are partially employed. So, when you talk of employment in Customs or Immigration, you’ll see everybody rushing there,” the president said.

“Unfortunately in Nigeria, when you talk about the issues of development, people think that it is only the federal government that can solve the problems. I believe that government is one even in terms of separation of power whether the executive arm of government, the legislative arm of government and the judicial arm of government.”